Optical connectors are often used in a variety of harsh environments where communication or power interfaces need to be coupled together. For example, such environments may include subsea, outer space, remote or hard to reach locations, and hazardous environments. In undersea environments, remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) may need to plug into subsea vessels or devices to communicate therewith, and may have mechanical manipulators to mate signal and/or power connectors together. Yet, successfully mating of these connectors often requires specialized tooling and highly skilled operators. Even so, the manipulators may exert a significant amount of force on the connectors and thus they are susceptible to relatively frequent damage. Moreover, debris between the connectors may also lead to damage and/or reliability issues, particularly in view of the stringent alignment factors typically associated with such connectors.
Furthermore, the operating environment for such connectors may be extremely harsh. Referring again to subsea applications, not only do such applications involve operation in corrosive salt water, but at depth the pressures on such connectors may be very high. In addition, in the case of optical fiber communications, it may be difficult to align optical fibers for communication even in ideal circumstances, but in subsea or other environments such as those listed above, this may be particularly challenging.
One example of wet matable connector is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,464,405 to Cairns et al. This reference discloses an underwater connector which has a plug and a receptacle unit each having an internal chamber in which a respective contact module is located. Each module has an end face having contacts for engagement with corresponding contacts on the other module when the units are releasably mated together. Each chamber has a resilient forward end with an opening communicating with the respective chamber, and an actuator in each unit compresses the forward end to seal the opening when the units are unmated. As the units are mated, the actuator in one unit is urged rearwardly and the forward end of the chamber in the other unit is urged rearwardly, such that each end opens to permit the module of one unit to pass into the chamber of the other unit, and into engagement with the other module so that all contacts are engaged for communication between the units.
Despite the existence of such connector configurations, further enhancements in couplers for communications systems, such as in subsea, outer space, and hazardous environments, may be desired in certain applications.